A look at the Middle East

Hezbollah: The New Fayrouz

The singer Fairouz basically embodies Lebanon’s history as it developed in the decades following World War II, the desire to be a cosmopolitan meeting ground where East and West melded together into something unique and widely admired. Hizbollah represents the newer reality of a region that has soured on the West. It’s a militant organization rooted in local religious traditions and determined to supplant what it considers a repressive colonial hangover with muscular native power. The tension created by the fight between those two competing visions for the future has engulfed the Middle East for my entire adult life and remains unresolved

[tweetmeme] Neil MacFarquhar in The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes you a Happy Birthday

Also from MacFarquhar, apparently Hezbollah will send you birthday cards!

International Criminal Law

NEW POST

All of the sudden Israel became a source of inspiration and a leading factor in American Jewish life. Often it was heralded as the “light unto nations” and various narratives at this time sprang up with great proliferation. Criticism of Israel and its policies within the community and within the world in general was kept hidden to a point that criticism was (and still now) considered anti-Semitic or “self hating.” This newly found love affair produced a plethora of “authoritative” works by prominent American Jews and their sympathizers that were held in high regard. Miraculously these books coincided with key events in the history where Israel was rightly being condemned for massive atrocities in the occupied territories and foreign countries such as Lebanon.